The AsterNym star registry
Alasia
Alasia: the golden star of Serpens
golden · Serpens · HD 168746
Alasia is a golden star, warmer-toned than our Sun in the constellation Serpens, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 7.95 it is a binocular or telescope object.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Alasia is not. Some IAU-recognised names are ancient; others were adopted by the IAU only recently. Either way, the star already has a scientific identity, and a dedication attaches a human story to it.
Real star · Personal dedication · Recorded in the AsterNym registry
See what a dedicated page looks like: preview
Alasia at a glance
- Constellation
- Serpens
- Other name
- HD 168746
- Catalogue number
- HIP 90004
- Distance
- ≈ 139 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 7.95 telescope
- Star type
- G5
- Colour
- golden
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 18h 21m 50s
- Declination
- −11° 55′ 22″
J2000 catalogue coordinates that can be independently cross-checked against astronomical databases. A planetarium app showing coordinates of date will differ slightly, because proper motion and precession move a star’s apparent position over time.
What kind of star is Alasia?
Alasia is a yellow star. Its surface runs about 5,500°C, near enough the Sun's own surface temperature. Colour in a star is a temperature reading rather than a decoration: the hot ones are blue and the cool ones red, the opposite way round to a kitchen tap.
This is the Sun's class. Looking at a star like this is the closest you get to seeing what our own star looks like from outside, which is a stranger thought than it first sounds.
A star of this class gets around ten thousand million years, and the Sun is halfway through its own.
Alasia drifts about 7.3 arcseconds a century against the stars behind it. Slow by any human measure, and still enough that the sky your distant descendants see will not be the one in your photographs.
The light you are looking at is old
The light arriving from Alasia tonight left in about 1887, some 139 years ago. Everything that has happened since, every person you have heard of from the last few centuries, happened while it was in transit.
That delay is the part people find hardest and like most. A star is the one thing you can give someone that was already old before either of you was born and will outlast anything else you could have chosen.
It sits at the edge of what an unaided eye can do, so finding it is a deliberate act rather than an accident.
What could a Alasia dedication represent?
Alasia is especially meaningful for someone who:
- · Deserves something older than any gift shop
- · Marks a beginning, an anniversary or a promise
- · Is remembered every time you look up
- · Has a light you want recorded somewhere permanent
Dedication idea
“For the one I think of when I find Serpens in the sky.”
Where can you see Alasia?
It sits 12° south of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 78°N, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 12°S. It stands highest at midnight in June, so June and July evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 7.95 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.
Alasia belongs to Serpens.
What does Alasia mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Alasia, and we don’t invent lore where none exists. What astrology can still read is the star’s real position, below.
Projected onto the zodiac the way fixed-star astrology reads any star, Alasia stands at 5° Capricorn at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 24 December in the years around 2000. Fixed-star longitude shifts slowly against the tropical zodiac because of precession, about one degree every seventy-two years, so a natal conjunction must be calculated for the birth year rather than read off this J2000 value or a calendar date.
Traditional interpretations, not facts or predictions. The position and dates are computed.
Dedicate Alasia to someone who matters
A flower fades. A card is eventually put away. A star gives your message a place in the sky.
from$29.95a year
Dedicate Alasia →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Alasia dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Alasia's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Alasia keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Alasia
- What does Alasia mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Alasia. Projected onto the zodiac, Alasia stands at 5° Capricorn, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 24 December.
- Is Alasia the brightest star?
- Alasia shines at magnitude 7.95 · a binocular-and-telescope star, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Alasia?
- Alasia is approximately 139 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 139 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Alasia?
- Alasia is part of Serpens.
- Can everyone see Alasia?
- It sits 12° south of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 78°N, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 12°S. It stands highest at midnight in June, so June and July evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 7.95 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.
- Is dedicating Alasia an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Alasia keeps its internationally recognised astronomical name. An AsterNym dedication records your personal name and message in the AsterNym registry without changing the star's scientific identity.
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